


Basic Quarantine Protocols

by DeadBart



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Coronavirus, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Light-Hearted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:06:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23132149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeadBart/pseuds/DeadBart
Summary: The group gathers at Troy and Abed's apartment to #quarantineandchill (in a platonic way) when coronavirus panic sweeps Greendale.
Relationships: Abed Nadir/Rachel (Community), Annie Edison/Jeff Winger, Troy Barnes/Britta Perry
Comments: 9
Kudos: 161





	Basic Quarantine Protocols

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably my favourite of my Community fics. Its the fluffiest and least plotty fic I've ever written. Enjoy!

**To: Greendale Student Mailing List**

**From: craigpelton@greendale.com**

**cc: Greendale Faculty Mailing List**

**As a preventative measure in light of the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus, effective immediately, all classes at Greendale Community College are cancelled until further notice and GCC campus is closed to all students and faculty.**

**Please direct all inquiries to francescadart@greendale.com**

**Good luck out there!**

**Dean Craig Pelton**

Jeff scanned the email, grinned, and flopped back into bed. The one big upside to being a teacher was getting to feel the ecstasy of school being cancelled as an adult. Well that, the summer break, movie days, the cush teachers’ lounge... maybe it wasn’t that bad a gig.

“Don’t you need to get to work?” Annie (who had, naturally, been up for 2 hours) prodded Jeff in the ribs.

“Pandemic. Very hazardous. School cancelled.” Jeff mumbled contentedly, keeping his eyes defiantly shut.

Annie, clearly not having it, flung the curtains open. The rising sun glared in brightly enough to glow orange even through Jeff’s tightly closed eyelids. He did a mock vampire hiss and grabbed Annie around the waist, pulling her giggling down onto the bed. She lightly slapped his chest.

“Get up, you big idiot. The Department of Justice office is closed too and we’re not wasting a whole day off lazing around.” Annie scolded. Jeff squinted in the morning light and flashed his used car salesman smile.

“There are other things to do in bed on a day off.”

“Not with your morning breath there aren’t.” Annie teased, hopping off the bed and marching out into the hall.

Jeff groaned and heaved himself to his feet, shaking off the beautiful dream of a day in bed. He walked into the bathroom to shower, but stopped in his tracks when he noticed the empty toilet paper roll next to the toilet.

“Do we have any more toilet paper?” Jeff shouted out into the living room. The loud sigh he got in response answered his question.

“What does the supply spreadsheet say?” Annie shouted back. Jeff begrudgingly opened Annie’s meticulous spreadsheet of the apartment’s inventory and found that (of course) they were 100% out of toilet paper and (of course) it had been his turn to run out for more several days ago.

“I’ll go get more after I’m done in here.” Jeff said, trying to defuse a potential argument.

“No you won’t, Jeff. Every single store for miles has been cleaned out! Everyone’s been panic-buying toilet paper for days! Haven’t you been reading the news?”

Jeff rubbed his temple and groaned.

“Okay so we’re screwed?” He asked, defeated. He could hear Annie tapping away on her phone.

“Nope!” she responded quickly, “The guys have got loads stockpiled over at the old apartment! Abed wants us to come over and hang out today. Quarantine party!”

Jeff sighed.

“Didn’t the government say we shouldn’t go to big gatherings?”

Annie tossed a cushion at him from the couch.

“Gatherings of over 150 people, you big grump. I don’t think we’re in any danger from Troy, Abed, and Britta.”

Jeff could tell at this point that there was no resisting the impromptu virus party.

“Alright alright, I’ll get ready.”

Abed poked at Britta’s head with the end of the broom as she moaned and groaned dramatically on the pullout bed.

“I think Britta may be infected.” he said clinically, glancing at the printed list of symptoms laying next to his copy of The Zombie Survival Guide.

Troy parried Abed’s broom away from Britta’s head with the mop, initiating a brief duel across the apartment.

“She’s not sick, she’s just hungover, man.” Troy laughed as he swatted away a quick attack from Abed.

Britta ran her hands down her face.

“I think this is more fatal than the virus.” she whined, fumbling ineffectively with the blinds in an attempt to close them more tightly. She winced a little every time the broom and mop struck each other, the little thwacks feeling like a Neil Peart solo in her head.

“Troy can you get me a glass of water?” she asked, pouting dramatically at him.

“Yeah babe just a-” Troy was interrupted by Abed cracking the broom across the back of his head.

“Never let your guard down!” he shouted, doing a swishy little victory pose with the broom.

The buzzer went off loudly. Britta pulled a pillow over her head to keep it from exploding.

“Who’s that at 8 in the morning?” she asked, annoyed.

“Jeff and Annie. I asked them to come over. We can all hang out and weather the pandemic like the apartment’s a fallout shelter. Like Day of the Dead.” Abed answered as he headed out the door to let his guests in.

“Oh yeah Jeff and Annie, just who I want to see when I’ve already got a killer headache.” Britta sighed as Troy handed her a glass of water and an aspirin. He smiled and kissed her forehead.

“Be nice. Nobody made you down all that tequila last night you know. Me and Abed had like two beers each.”

“They said online that alcohol kills the virus. I was just playing it safe.” Britta insisted.

“Aww, somebody hungover?” Jeff teased, way too loudly, from the doorway. Britta glared at him.

“You know, Winger, most people turn into assholes when they’re drunk, but I think quitting drinking made you more of an asshole than you ever were sauced.”

“Yeah you should never have let Frankie and Shirley talk me into those meetings.” Jeff laughed as he crashed in one of the recliners by the TV. Annie gave Britta a sympathetic look which Britta chose to read as condescending.

“If you’re feeling under the weather I’ve got a great hangover cure!” Annie volunteered. Britta scowled. Troy laughed and patted her on the shoulder.

“Don’t mind Britta, she’ll only be like this for another half hour or so.” he assured the others.

“And then we can look forward to hours of Britta’s regular self? Wow!” Jeff said, miming amazement. Annie slapped him upside the head as she walked off into the kitchen with Abed.

Troy grabbed a hastily drawn “BIOHAZARD QUARANTINE DO NOT ENTER” sign off of the coffee table, taped it to the apartment door, and slammed it shut.

_**9:00 AM** _

Jeff and Troy played Goldeneye while Abed sat opposite them in a referee’s shirt, watching their eyes and shouting any time either of them so much as glanced at the other’s screen.

Annie sat out on the fire escape with Britta, holding her hair while she puked off the side into an open trash can below. Britta had assured Annie that this was absolutely necessary as the pure toxicity within her would “strip the shit out of” their toilet.

_**10:00 AM** _

Britta read aloud from Chang’s personnel file, reading a laundry list of diagnoses and citations. It was generally agreed (by everyone except Annie who sat in the corner with her eyes shut, covering her ears) that this abuse of her position as Greendale’s guidance counsellor was a necessary evil for the sake of their own safety.

_**11:00 AM** _

Annie and Britta got on Jeff and Troy’s shoulders and attempted a joust with the mop and broom.

_**11:01 AM** _

Abed dug out the first aid kit.

_**12:00 PM** _

Troy and Annie made soup and sandwiches for lunch. Troy’s sandwiches were distinguished by the sprinkles he had insisted on adding despite Annie’s protests. Britta downed her own sandwich, then Jeff’s, reasoning that he didn’t want the carbs and she needed them to sop up the last dregs of the previous night’s mistakes from her system.

_**1:00 PM** _

There was a quick knock on the door. Everyone but Annie shot their index fingers to their noses, so after a brief show of moaning she got up off the floor where they’d spread out Abed’s Inspector Spacetime Monopoly set and answered.

“Hey!” she cheered as she opened the door to find Rachel waiting. Abed’s girlfriend looked around the room, a little confused.

“We’re doing a quarantine party.” Troy explained, “Abed watched The Andromeda Strain last night.”

“Ah!” Rachel nodded comprehension and walked into the room, lightly ruffling Abed’s hair as she sat down with the group.

“Hon doesn’t it seem a little contradictory to have a quarantine party?” she asked.

“That’s what I said.” Jeff noted.

Abed shook his head.

“Remember The Stand? You can’t survive these things unless you come together as a community.”

“Of course. Got to be together when the psychic dreams start.” Rachel laughed.

Abed offered to “deal her in”. Britta questioned how you could deal someone into Monopoly a half hour in. Troy assured her Abed had a system.

_**2:00 PM** _

Troy was running through some of his most classic stories of his time at sea while Annie and Abed, the last players left, played out a cutthroat final stretch of their game.

“Man how are you still living here in Greendale after all that? Aren’t you bored?” Jeff asked.

Troy smiled in a way he never had before his globetrotting adventure. A knowing sort of smile.

“Nah dude, I’m a producer now! And I own a community college!”

“The dream.” Jeff agreed sarcastically.

Troy shook his head and laughed.

“You know how in movies guys with big important jobs always realize when they’re like 60 that they should be spending more time with their families? That money isn’t everything? You realize that real quick when you’re spending days and days on end floating around the ocean. I had all kinds of wild times out there. I swam with dolphins. I got shot at by the real, not-fun kind of pirate. I ate the weird McDonalds food they’ve got in other places. And through all of that all I kept thinking about was how much I wished I had you guys with me. No amount of crazy excitement beats this, man.”

Jeff was taken a little aback. Troy had been different when he came back and they’d had him back for several years now, but he’d never totally opened up like this. After Troy had spent a significant chunk of his new fortune buying Greendale out from the school board in 2018 to prevent a sale to Buffalo Wild Wings, Jeff had often wondered why he didn’t get better digs instead of hanging around his old apartment with Britta and Abed. He’d wondered why he’d bothered saving the old school in the first place. He nodded and silently smiled at his old friend. For a long time he’d seen Troy as just an overgrown teenage boy. Now he knew for sure he’d grown into a better man than Jeff had ever hoped to be.

Troy then proceeded to join Abed in flipping the Monopoly board and making it rain Inspector Spacetime branded bills to prevent Annie’s ultimate victory, something Rachel referred to as their “primal ritual”.

_**3:00 PM** _

Jeff and Britta sat out on the fire escape passing a joint back and forth. Jeff had been taking CBD tablets to relieve his anxiety for a couple of years and now found himself occasionally sharing in Britta’s favourite indulgence.

“Don’t tell Annie.” he joked as he took a light drag and passed remainder back.

“Keeping secrets? Tsk tsk.” Britta prodded.

“Nah, its not like that. We’re both addicts and we both allow each other our own things, you know? She still drinks and I’ve got this. Should really give it up though. Hard on the lungs.” Jeff’s face grew a little distant. Britta looked at him quizzically.

“You worried about your health?”

“I’ve always been worried about my health.”

“Yeah but like more than usual? And not just because there’s a global pandemic going on?”

Jeff sighed and waved away her offer of the dregs of the joint.

“We’ve been talking lately about kids, you know? And I’m going on 47 now and I just keep thinking about it. Like if we pull the trigger now, I’m going to be in my 60s when this kid is in their teens. I want to be able to keep up. I want to be around for grandkids.”

Britta looked over at him sympathetically.

“Hey at least being a guy you get the luxury of starting this late. Yet another male privilege.” she snorted.

“Are we going to discuss the patriarchal bias of nature? Because I don’t think that stuff was potent enough for me to get through that conversation.” Jeff teased. Britta shot him a crooked smile.

“Abed and Rachel are moving in together soon, so Troy and I have decided we’re going to get a house.” she announced.

“Wow. About time. How long have you been living in this bachelor pad?”

“Shut up. Anyway, we decided we’re going to look into adopting. I want to say its just my charitable spirit, but I’m going on 40 now and Frankie won’t stop telling me these graphic stories about the dangers of getting pregnant in middle age and like AAH!” Britta broke off into laughter. Jeff breathed out, feeling a sense of relief having shared his worries.

“I’m really glad we’re friends. You know that?” he said. Britta shoved him.

“I liked you better when you were an asshole.”

_**4:00 PM** _

An impromptu dance-off was interrupted by a downstairs neighbour pounding on the door demanding quiet. A slightly more subdued impromptu dance-off was interrupted by Troy getting emotional when Drops of Jupiter came on Spotify.

_**5:00 PM** _

Britta poured a glass of wine despite Troy’s protests. She articulately argued that wine was classy and good for the heart and did not count as drinking. Annie elected to join her, impressed by her newfound debate skills.

_**6:00 PM** _

A heated debate erupted over whether or not ordering Thai food counted as breaking quarantine. Jeff pointed out that the quarantine had already been broken when they’d let Rachel in. Annie retorted that that didn’t count because they loved Rachel. Britta (now three glasses of wine deep) insisted that she loved the people at the Thai place and read several tweets saying they should support Asian businesses to combat stigma during the outbreak. The general wokeness of the argument was unanimously agreed upon.

_**7:00 PM** _

Thai food was consumed. Britta talked Annie into downing a fruity cocktail.

“Are cocktails classy too?” Troy asked.

“You see how hard these are to make? These are artisanal, Troy. They’re bespoke.” Britta responded.

“Okay fine make me one too.”

_**8:00 PM** _

An extremely chaotic Mario Kart session erupted after Troy declared himself the world champion of the game and Britta demanded to know if he thought she couldn’t drive because of her gender.

“Might have more to do with being six drinks deep?” Jeff offered.

“Put up or shut up!” Britta shot back. Jeff raised his hands in surrender.

“Hey as the designated driver for this group, this is the one time its everyone else’s turn to drive. It wouldn’t be fair.”

Annie, a little tipsy, waved a finger at him.

“I think you’re just scared, mister.” she giggled.

“Oh yeah?” Jeff shouted.

Things devolved from there. Abed trounced everyone repeatedly until losing to Rachel which Annie refused to believe was not an intentional flop. Jeff’s reminders that she’d come in dead last and her position was not affected at all by this possibility did not cool her off.

_**9:00 PM** _

Troy and Abed agreed with Annie’s statement that leaving the apartment to go up on the roof was not breaking quarantine as there wouldn’t be any other people up there. Jeff protested that they probably shouldn’t stand on top of a building wasted, but nobody paid him much attention. He wasn’t particularly fazed. Even when they were sober he’d felt like this group’s designated driver for years.

Abed popped the locked service door open with tools from his caper kit and the group shuffled outside.

“Beautiful.” Annie sighed, staring up at the stars.

Greendale wasn’t built up enough for light pollution to wash out the sky, so the view was pretty spectacular.

The group laid down in a circle, heads nearly touching, staring up at the twinkling lights.

“This is just like Across the Universe.” Abed noted.

“Shut up Abed.” Jeff sighed. He had to admit, it was nice. Annie gently slipped her fingers between his and smiled at him, giving his hand a light squeeze. Everything was peaceful.

_**10:00 PM** _

Abed and Rachel were yelling about the end of Lost, which Rachel insisted was emotionally satisfying.

“What does that even mean? They just ad-libbed a bunch of shallow fantasy tropes with no explanation!” Abed exclaimed.

“It was about a personal journey. It was about the love between a group of people.” Rachel clapped her hands on each syllable.

Britta groaned, having heard this debate about 50 times. Troy smiled.

“I just liked the smoke monster. That thing was cool.”

_**11:00 PM** _

Jeff scooped up a now thoroughly drunk Annie and tossed her over his shoulder.

“Big boy. My big big boy.” she slurred, patting him on the back and grinning as he stepped out of the door with the pack of toilet paper they’d managed to barter a Starbucks gift card for.

“Thanks for having us, guys. Its been a great time.” Jeff gave the group a salute and headed out. Annie waved back at the crew from his shoulder as Britta shut the door, leaned against it, and slid down to the floor with a groan. Troy shook his head.

“I told you not to get cross-faded again. I am not playing nurse with you again tomorrow morning.”

Britta closed her eyes and smiled.

“Yes you are.”

**_11:30 PM_ **

Jeff lowered Annie onto the bed gently. She reached up for his collar and dragged him down into a kiss.

“I love our friends.” she announced dramatically as they pulled apart. Jeff flopped down onto the bed next to her.

“Yeah, me too. Most of the time.”

“Pfft shut up.” Annie hit him with a pillow. She turned over to look at him seriously.

“What are you thinking about?”

Jeff smiled back at her.

“Family. Something we can think about when you sober up.”

Annie curled up into his chest.

“I’m plenty sober.”

She was snoring less than a second later.

**To: Greendale Student Mailing List**

**From: francescadart@greendale.com**

**cc: Greendale Faculty Mailing List**

**If for any reason any student or faculty member needs to be on campus during the shutdown, please be aware that Math teacher Benjamin Chang has tested positive for COVID-19, but refuses to leave campus. GCC Nurse Jackie Parnell is addressing the issue.**

**Please direct all inquiries to craigpelton@greendale.com**

**Stay safe,**

**School Administrator Francesca Dart**


End file.
